1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to a hybrid power supply architecture, and more specifically to a hybrid power supply architecture actuating a linear regulator and/or a switching regulator based on a loading state so as to achieve optimal electrical efficiency of seamless switching for supplying hybrid power.
2. The Prior Arts
For electronic devices with different electrical properties, it is generally needed to provide various power sources having appropriate voltage, current or electric power. For instance, electric motors are actuated by 12 DCV, analog chips are fed with 3.3V, and digital chips operate at 1.8V. Therefore, power management manufacturers have developed kinds of power regulation device to meet the requirement of the market. Additionally, some voltage regulators with the function of stabilizing the output voltage are needed when the original input power is possibly unstable, like the city power resulting in instant fluctuation of the output voltage due to imbalance of loading. Alternatively, when the output voltage or the output current becomes unstable because the ability of the power supply is limited and fierce variation of the loading is not overcome, the voltage regulator is also necessary.
Two typical schemes including linear regulation and switching regulation have been widely used in the common application field of electronic devices. Linear regulation generally employs linear electronic components such as operational amplifier to co-operate with some voltage or current sensing circuit so as to control the output unit such as power transistor, thereby generating a stable output power by dynamical regulation according to the loading. For switching regulation, the PWM signal with high frequency component is used to control and turn on/off the specific transistor such that the original input power is converted into the output power with specific voltage, current or electric power. At the same time, noise components in the input power are screened out, achieving the object of power regulation and/or power conversion.
Practically, both linear regulation and switching regulation consume part of electric power supplied by the input power, leading to inevitable operation loss which changes with the loading. For example, linear regulation has lower operation loss at light loading, and switching regulation has lower operation loss at heavy loading. In other words, linear regulation is suitable for the application of light loading, and switching regulation is preferred for heavy loading. As a result, it is impossible to use only one of linear regulation and switching regulation to substantially reduce the overall operation loss when the variation range of loading is large, further causing low electrical efficiency.
Therefore, it greatly needs a new hybrid power supply architecture to dynamically switch the linear regulation and the switching regulation based on the actual electrical loading. In particular, the purpose of power supply with seamless switching is successfully fulfilled, and low power consumption and stable output power are implemented, thereby overcoming the problems in the prior arts.